


I won’t say (I’m in love)

by dreams_for_spring



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (a little bit), Alternate Universe - College/University, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Joffrey is a brief obstacle, Jon Snow and the Starks Are Not Related, Jon is somehow immune to her charms, Making her irresistible to mortals, Mild Sexual Content, Playing fast and loose with mythology, Sansa is a demigoddess, mostly fluff with a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:53:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27830023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreams_for_spring/pseuds/dreams_for_spring
Summary: “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to do well in school,” Sansa replies acidly.“No, nothing wrong at all,” Jon murmurs, moving far too close to her. His fingers twirl lightly around a loose strand of hair that frames her face, and she can feel her knees begin to buckle. “I bet you never do anything wrong, do you, Red?”--AU in which Sansa is a demigoddess trying to lay low and make it through her first year of university. Meanwhile, Jon Snow seems to exist only to distract her.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 37
Kudos: 184
Collections: Jonsa Holidays 2020





	I won’t say (I’m in love)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sanzuh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanzuh/gifts).



> Title from the Disney movie Hercules =)
> 
> For Direwolfjon, who requested a magical creatures AU. I decided to do something a little bit different, so Sansa is a demigoddess in this story – daughter of Sea Nymph Catelyn Stark. I was able to fit in a bit of angst, a bit of fluff, and a happy ending, as requested. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> I also managed to sneak in my favourite line from Clueless, which partially inspired this version of Sansa in my mind.
> 
> *minor TW for Joffrey getting handsy with Sansa and promptly being punched*

The first time Sansa sees him is on the second day of fall semester, when he walks into the two-hundred-person lecture hall of her Psychology course late. The door to the hall crashes closed, and her eyes meet his for just a second as she flashes him an irritated glare. He has the smallest semblance of grace to wince slightly at the sound, and tries to walk quietly to a seat one row down from hers, though by now half the hall is staring at him.

Her eyes follow him as he moves, taking in a half-faded black tee and old jeans that hug his body in the pleasant way that only old jeans do – but her gaze quickly sets upon his face. Beneath an unruly mess of dark curls is one of the angriest black eyes she’s ever seen; all blues and reds and black bruising, set in stark contrast to the brilliant dark grey of his irises. 

Professor Mormont lets out a little cough as though to acknowledge the interruption without ever actually stopping, continuing to breeze through his slide deck faster than most of the class can keep up. Sansa’s fingers tap elegantly upon her laptop in time to Mormont’s words, yet her eyes keep drifting to the back of the man’s head.

He is certainly handsome, but something else keeps him in her thoughts. It’s the way that sadness seems to swim just beneath the surface of his face, hidden in the corners of his high angled cheekbones and sullen, downturned lips, frozen in the grey of his eyes. In that sadness, she feels something familiar; like a word or a memory at the tip of her tongue, just out of reach. 

_There is nothing remarkable about him_ , she tells herself primly, trying to push him from her mind. She reminds herself once more of the mistake that she made last year in dating a mortal man, and of how badly that ended for both of them.

She can't help but notice that there is something at least somewhat intriguing about this man with the black eye though, because even though every other set of eyes in the classroom darts to her at least once during the lecture, he never looks up at her so much as once. Sansa tries to think of the last time someone has not been drawn to her in some way or another, but as far back as she can remember only her mother has ever been unaffected by her powers.

She’d known she was different since she was a babe, but never understood how, other than everyone always seemed to want to make her happy. Her mother had visited her as a child and tried to explain to her that her powers were gifts, bestowed by the very blood that runs through her veins. Everyone knew that the gods walked hidden among them, but it was a different thing entirely to learn that she was one of them.

These days she sees it as more of a curse than a gift – when everyone around you is a victim to your charms, it’s hard to know who you can really trust, and even harder to know if there is anyone you could ever love. 

The alarm on Professor Mormont’s watch rings to tell him that class is over, and he reluctantly looks from the slides upon the projector to his laptop, biting at his lip. “We’ll continue where we left off next class!” He calls out as the sounds of two hundred students standing fills the hall. Chair seats squeak loudly as they flip back up, a hundred zippers call out in unison, and Sansa carefully closes her laptop and slides it back into its sleeve.

It is then that the man with the painfully black eye stands and heaves his old messenger bag up over his shoulders, a faded leather strap coming to rest across his wide chest. It tightens the fabric of his tee against him in a way that makes her throat parch.

As he walks away up the aisle of the hall, she hears a small scoff from her left. She shoots a glare in that direction, towards her friend Satin. He returns her glare with an innocent sort of smile and wraps his arm around hers as they walk up the stairs to the lecture hall doors.

“Who is that?” She asks, pointing in Jon’s direction with the tilt of her chin.

Satin gives her the same lascivious grin she has become accustomed to, running a hand through midnight curls as he does. “That, my dear, is Jon Snow. And hot as he may be, you should not be looking at him like that.”

His grin only widens as her cheeks flush.“What do you mean?” 

“Oh nothing, just – he’s not your type, not anyone’s type really. Heard he likes to get in fights, anger issues, you know? Besides, he didn’t seem that interested in you, which might be a first to be honest,” Satin replies. “Seriously, Sans, if I weren’t your best friend, I’d find it annoying the way that everyone seems to fall in love with you at first sight.”

 _Everyone except Jon Snow,_ she thinks distractedly, as they walk to their next class together. 

* * *

Not that she’s keeping track, but Jon Snow misses four more classes over the next two weeks. It’s become a sort of ritual for her to wait until at least fifteen minutes after class begins – he is often late even when he shows – and then scan around the classroom to spy out his mop of curls. Unlike her, he always seems to sit in a different spot.

It’s as though he enjoys spreading chaos wherever he goes.

The black eye has faded over the past couple weeks, though today he is sporting a splint around two of his fingers, making it difficult for him to write. He winces in pain and gives up on writing altogether shortly after class begins. 

Sansa watched his pained expression, feeling strangely like thousands of tiny pinpricks have erupted within her chest as she does. She decides to ignore Satin’s advice, and offer Jon her notes after class. It will give her the chance to get close to him and try to understand why her powers don’t seem to have any effect on him at all.

She almost succeeds in convincing herself that it is the only reason.

When class is over, she has already packed up her things and carefully placed them in her bag. She is ready and waiting at the end of his seat row when Jon stands up and slings his bag across his chest. Today, the leather strap cuts across a fine knit sweater, drawing her eyes down from corded muscles that peek out around his collar to where his bag rests to the side of narrow hips. She swallows tightly and refocuses upon his eyes, realizing far too late that that is a dangerous choice too.

“My name is Sansa,” she says, reaching her hand out to shake his own.

He takes a look at her outstretched hand and cocks an eyebrow, as though he finds the gesture amusing.

“I know who you are,” he replies, taking a step forward, but ignoring her hand. Instinctively, she takes a step back, releasing him to walk out from the row.

He takes a step up the stairs before she runs up two more to block him once more. No one has ever ignored her like this, ever been so wildly uninterested in her before.

It is the most infuriating thing about Jon Snow yet.

“I, um, I thought you might like to borrow my notes. I saw you were having trouble writing in class and I–“ she trails off when Jon’s face cracks into a grin, revealing even white teeth. His eyebrow is still cocked though, giving him an almost bemused expression.

“You,” he begins, head tilting just slightly as the grin widens, “were watching me during class?”

Her cheeks flush, and she begins to feel as though she’s been stripped bare by his words. It is utterly and completely disconcerting, yet somehow thrilling as well; her heart begins to thrum wildly in her chest. “I just – I happened to glance over and see you struggling."

He is silent then, arms coming to cross his chest as if he is gauging her. Normally, other people would have noticed her discomfort by now, but he seems to revel in unnerving her. 

“I think I’ll survive without them,” he finally replies. There is a sort of guardedness in the way he says it, as though he's not used to anyone offering him help. He moves to leave her once more, climbing up a couple steps.

“Wait,” Sansa calls out before he can get too far. “You never introduced yourself.”

Jon looks back at her and flashes that same grin of before. “Why would I do that? You’ve already heard everything about me from your friend Satin, haven't you, Red?”

His words are a dagger, and she can feel the heat on her cheeks deepen as she struggles to come up with an apology. 

He never gives her the chance.

* * *

Satin has dragged her to a Halloween mixer, leaving her alone momentarily while he mingles with the other art history majors. Sansa stands by the open bar, pouring far too much vodka into her pomegranate juice, struck by jealousy for the easy way that he has with others. He slides from one person to the next with grace; a hug here, a kiss on the cheek there, and each one met with a wide, beaming smile. When people smile for her, she is almost always left wondering if it’s real.

She is torn from her thoughts by the sound of a man walking into a support column, his eyes drawn straight towards her. _I shouldn’t have even come at all,_ she thinks, taking a large sip from her drink, eyes narrowing from the heavy taste of vodka on her tongue.

“People always trip over everything just to watch you, don’t they Red?”

The voice comes from behind her, leaving her spine tingling as she spins around to see Jon directly before her. He’s dressed once more in black, except this time it seems to be for his costume. An Ikea rug hangs around his shoulders tied as a cloak, and a plastic sword is tied to his waist.

He’s holding a bottle of beer in his hand and takes a pull from it while waiting for her to respond. She can see his smile through the brown glass and hates him for it.

She’s determined to not let him make her feel like she did last time; determined to not let him have the last laugh and make her feel guilty for things beyond her control. More than anything, she's determined to ignore the way her heart is pounding in her chest now that he is looking right at her.

“My name is Sansa,” she responds curtly. “Not Red. And let me guess, you’re dressed up as a man of the Night’s Watch.”

“Aye,” he says with a grin, taking another sip. A drop of beer escapes from his mouth, and he licks his lips to catch it. It’s hard not to watch his tongue as he does.

His eyes roam down the thin white sheet she’s tied tight around her waist as a robe, over to the wheat sheaf in her hand. She feels her body tighten with a curious thrill of excitement under his gaze. For a second, something dark flashes past his eyes, before it’s replaced once more by that expression of his; something squarely between bemusement and resentment.

“And I suppose you’re dressed up as Persephone.”

“I am,” she replies with a proud smile, spinning around to let her robe float and flow around her. She can feel the room quiet despite the heavy beat of the music, half a hundred eyes shifting to watch her – all except for Jon’s. Her lips purse in disappointment.

“A little too mainstream, wouldn’t you say, Red?” He says, somehow ignoring the anger building up within her, surging heavy in her veins. He leans in close, giving her the smallest hint of his cologne, brisk as winter wind. "Besides, we both know you're too headstrong to ever just be another man's queen."

His breath skates softly against her ear as he speaks, sending a shiver through her. He stands close for another minute, as though watching for her reaction, seeming to enjoy getting under her skin like he is.

"Would it kill you to be kind?" She says finally, though it comes out more as a whisper.

"I wouldn't want to take the chance," he replies, biting at his lip to hide his grin as he pulls away. "See you around, Red."

He walks away in the direction of his friends, who are waving him over. She wants him to come back so she can tell him that the men of the Night’s Watch were good and true, that they served with honour and valour, and that those are things he’d never understand. She wants to run after him and say a thousand things, each more scathing than the last, that will make him fall apart in front of her and beg for her forgiveness.

Instead, she takes another long sip of her pomegranate and vodka.

The next morning, Sansa sits in the tub of her shower, finding it just a little bit too difficult to stand and not vomit. The night comes back in hazes of purple black lights and strobe lights. There are flashes of dancing, of men in various costumes, and finally there is Jon in front of her, calling her Red and making her feel like her skin is on fire.

* * *

It’s the day before Thanksgiving and half the class has already flown home, deciding to skip Professor Mormont’s class since the lecture slides are already posted online. Just as she has set up her laptop at the aisle seat of her row, she hears the scuffle of shoes and looks up to see Jon Snow.

He’s wearing a heavy leather jacket that clings to his form, highlighting the broadness of his shoulders - it makes it hard to force herself to focus on how much she hates him.

“Shove over, Red,” he says, with a tilt of his chin.

Sansa’s eyes narrow. “No,” she replies with only the slightest hint of loathing, looking back down to her laptop.

“Fine, then I’ll just have to climb over you.” Tight jeans pass by in front of her, and she curses herself for looking at them and finding the view not entirely unpleasant. He takes his seat several seats away from her.

“Why are you even here? Shouldn’t you be halfway home by now?” She hisses under her breath, leaning in so he can hear her.

Jon pauses for just a second, before responding. “Not all of us have homes to go to.”

The words are like ice in her veins. “I’m sorry,” she whispers quickly.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve been alone all my life; I’m used to it by now.”

But the way his lips tighten and his eyes darken makes her think that maybe it still hurts, even just a little. There is something about him now, dressed in the shadow of his vulnerability, that cocked eyebrow wiped away and replaced with softness. She cannot place her finger on it, is not even certain it’s a feeling she has ever felt before, but she finds herself wanting to reach out and hold his hand.

Just then, Professor Mormont begins to speak, and Jon’s words are left hanging heavy between them for the remainder of class.

When class is over, she tries to quickly pack up her things, embarrassed by her forwardness of earlier.

“Rushing out to catch the last flight home?” He asks, before she can get away. There is the slightest hint of mockery in his tone, the softness of before gone again without a trace. “Would be a shame to miss a single class, wouldn’t it?”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to do well in school,” she replies acidly.

“No, nothing wrong at all,” he murmurs, moving far too close to her. His fingers twirl lightly around a loose strand of hair that frames her face, and she can feel her knees begin to buckle. “I bet you never do anything wrong, do you Red?”

The words send a curious thrill through her, but before she can respond, Jon has passed her, his hand brushing against hers as he does. It leaves her nerves tingling, simultaneously ice cold and red hot, so arresting that she nearly gasps.

He turns back slightly to look at her in interest, and she wonders if he felt it too.

* * *

Autumn makes its way to winter, and with it comes the inevitable end-of-term party. Sansa is not quite sure where the resident assistant, Sam, has gone, but he is nowhere in sight and the party that began in the first-floor rec room has managed to spill out over into the hallways and kitchens of every floor.

As she leaves her dorm to meet with her friends Satin and Margaery, she is assaulted by the smell of cheap beer, and trails of plastic solo cups lead from the kitchen area to the bathroom. Rational thought gives way to levity, and she grabs a cup from the keg set up in the kitchen, sipping on it absently as she makes her way down.

The semester has gone well and she's certain that she's aced all her classes, but there is one thing that's still bothering her, and his name is Jon Snow. He's avoided her completely since that day before Thanksgiving, denying her the opportunity to even talk to him. The feeling of his hand against hers plays on repeat in her mind, and she's played it over so many times now that she's certain she imagined it.

She’s almost done her beer by the time she makes it to the first floor. Here, the music is louder, the lights are dimmer, mostly replaced by strings of Christmas lights hung haphazardly through the halls. There are games of flip cup and slap cup set up on the long row tables in the rec room, and half a dozen kegs are tapped and ready to go. In the dark corners, people are making out, barely discernible where one body begins and the other ends.

Others stream in and out of the rec room, dancing to the music, beer sloshing from the edges of their cups. The mood of the room gets the better of her and before she knows it, she is swaying to the music too, heading towards the keg to refill her cup. The crowd splits in an easy way, like the opening of a zipper, and Sansa carefully slips through. She can feel the room shift to her mood, people filling the gaps where she just was. Eyes turn to her, watching, focusing – it’s something she still hasn’t gotten used to, even after all this time.

As she’s leaning down to fill her cup, a strong arm wraps its way around her, accompanied by the warmth of a body leaning in far too close for comfort.

“Let me help you with that,” the man says, leaning in ever closer, the smell of stale beer assaulting her nostrils.

Her body goes rigid suddenly, and she spins around in his arm to find her ex-boyfriend, Joffrey, staring back at her. His eyes have that dull colour to them that tells her he’s drunk too much already, and his face is half slack and pulled into a lazy smile. His fingers dig into her back in an almost painful way, and she manages to pry out of his grasp only for his arm to claw its way back.

“Joffrey, I need you to let me go,” she says with as even a tone as she can manage.

He gives her a dangerous smile and begins to lead her from the room despite her protests. “Why would I ever do that again? The last time I let you go, I nearly went mad thinking about you.”

As he leans in, his breath hot and stinking of beer, she punches forward into his sternum, the air leaving his body in a painful gasp. He stumbles back slightly, off kilter.

In the next instant, another man has come and punched him so hard that Joffrey crumples to the ground. The man looks back to her, and she is surprised to see Jon looking up at her, blood staining the edges of his knuckles.

Concern takes over as she sees Joffrey beginning to stir. “We need to get out of here,” she hisses, grabbing Jon’s hand and pulling him to the stairwell. 

"I didn't even punch him that hard," Jon retorts. “He’ll be fine tomorrow.”

“It's not that," Sansa puffs as they climb the stairs. "His dad is on the board for the university; if he knew it was you, he could have you expelled.”

When they finally reach her dorm room, she pulls him through the doorway and closes it behind her. She is breathless and dizzy, back sitting heavy against the door, laughing despite herself. Jon stands almost bewildered in the middle of the room, eyes darting from one place to the next; from fairy lights that hang over the head of her perfectly made bed, to the fish tank that sits on her windowsill, and finally over to her closet, where her clothes are arranged by season and colour.

“Even your dorm is fucking perfect,” he says, as though her dorm room is somehow another source of frustration for him. 

“It’s not perfect." How does he not see the wine stain upon her comforter, the one fairy light that has burnt out and not yet been replaced? “If you're just going to be mad at me, why did you even help me at all?"

Jon’s expression softens. “I’m not mad at you, Sansa. I just – I need a minute.”

He leans back against a paper-white wall, eyes half-closed and tilted up to the ceiling. The muscles of his neck peek out from beneath his jacket as he does; half-strained still as his jaw slowly unclenches. She watches his chest rise and fall and plays the sound of her name on his tongue over and over, wondering why he’s finally said it now, why he protected her at all.

“Joffrey shouldn’t have grabbed you like that,” he says finally.

Sansa allows herself to look haughty, arms crossed over her chest, lips pressed together tight. “Why would you even care?”

Jon takes a step towards her. “Because men like that ruin everything that is beautiful.”

The words fall against her in waves. There is something unspoken in them, something she is surprised to find herself desiring him to say.

“You think I’m beautiful?”

He gives her a crooked smile. “See this is why you drive me mad.”

“So I do make you mad," she counters, matching his smile as she does. No one has ever been this honest with her, been able to irritate her like he does. This time though, it feels almost like a game, like they are dancing around each other.

“Not like that. You just get under my skin and it riles me up so much that I want to–“ He pauses, eyes dropping to her lips for just a second. "I'll do better from now on, I promise."

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?” 

“No, Sansa, this is why.” His hand reaches out to hers, holding her palm in his. Instantly, her body feels electric; sparks scattering down her spine to her fingers and toes. It’s enough to make her gasp; but he only leans in closer, watching her reaction.

Her nose crinkles in confusion. “Why does that keep happening?” 

Jon gives her a sad smile. “All my life I’ve been different from everyone else around me. At first, I thought it was because I was an orphan, but over time things started happening that I couldn’t explain. I think that happened to you too, didn’t it?”

His fingers are tracing little patterns on the inside of her wrist, making it almost impossible to comprehend what he is saying, much less respond. All she can think about is that Jon Snow is standing in her dorm room with his hand around hers, and he has just called her beautiful, and for some reason that thought makes her head and heart swim.

“Once I knew what you were, I tried to stay away. I wanted to give you peace away from me," he says softly. “They say that gods who fall in love upon Earth are doomed, you know."

Sansa’s eyebrows furrow as realization dawns upon her; why her powers never affected him, why it feels this way to touch him, why something about him always seems so familiar. She looks inside herself to find the anger towards him that she is certain must be there. Instead, it’s as though all her frustration and anger at him has built and built, and exploded within her as something else entirely. 

Jon takes a final step forward, his body now flush to hers. She can feel his breath against her forehead, feel his fingers tracing softly up and down her bare arms. 

"Say again what you said to me before Thanksgiving, then," she whispers. His eyebrows furrow in brief confusion, before she begins to speak again. "Tell me I never do anything wrong."

"It's true, you never do–" he responds, before she lifts herself up on her toes, and presses her lips to his. His hand reaches out to the nape of her neck, pulling her in closer, and that too sends sparks running down her fingers until her whole body is coiled tight, aching for more. 

She knows that what Jon says has truth to it, that it's become an adage for a reason, and that kissing him alone in her dorm with the bed six feet away is probably a terrible idea. But tonight, she doesn't care.

“Is it always like this, when people like us kiss?” Her voice is shaky and out of breath as Jon’s mouth begins to trail kisses down her neck.

“I don’t know. I’ve never met another god, demi or otherwise,” he pants out, pausing to push the collar of her shirt down and suck a bruise just below her collarbone.

She lets out a moan as he does, pushing his jacket off to reveal a dark tee. That too she tugs at until he takes it off with a grin, revealing an expanse of lean muscle packed tight beneath his skin. She reaches out and touches his chest, marvelling in the softness of his skin, in the way he seems to quiet all the noise in her head.

“Is this your power, then?” She asks, as he continues to place kisses upon her, “making girls feel like they’re on fire?”

“Only you,” he mutters, wrapping her legs around his waist and pulling her up against the door with ease, tugging her shirt off as he does. 

The words are almost innocuous, yet they feel pleasantly heavy in her chest. “Only me,” she mumbles back, fingers working their way through his curls.

His body moves in time with hers as they kiss; the friction of his jeans against her own maddeningly delightful. She lets out the smallest mewl, and almost instantaneously he shifts to put more pressure against her center.

“Is that better?” 

She lets out a little cry of pleasure and falls against him, laughing into the crook of his neck. He holds her easily in his arms and guides them to the bed, kicking off his shoes as he does.

“Better now,” she whispers as her back falls against her covers, and Jon has knelt down between her legs. His face has shifted to one of concentration as he focuses on untying and pulling off her boots. She is quick to unbutton his jeans as he does.

He falls into bed beside her, him only in his boxers, and her in a bra and panties that she desperately wishes would have matched. Jon doesn’t seem to even notice or care though, and starts kissing a trail from her chest to her navel, stopping to nip and tease her along the way. 

He stops with his head hovering just above her center, fingers dipped into the band of her panties. “One word and we can stop,” he murmurs softly.

“Which word?” she replies with a giggle, back of her head pressed tight against her pillow.

“Any word at all. I’m serious Sansa, we don’t need to–“

“I want to,” she whines, her own fingers joining his at the waist of her panties. 

He lets out a pleasured groan and kisses her through the fabric before he pulls them down.

“Gods, you’re perfect," he whispers, hands roaming from her waist, down the curve of her belly, and behind her thighs. It's different the way he says it this time, almost reverential.

His kisses are soft and his tongue is clever, and for the first time in her entire life Sansa feels like it is just the two of them, and the rest of the world melts away.

* * *

It is painfully late, and the party has long winded down outside. She lies tangled in Jon’s arms, body pleasantly sated, and still half buzzing from his touch. She wraps her legs tight against him, relishing in the feel of tight muscle against her skin, in the afterglow of sex, and hanging upon the precipice of it once more.

“I’m certain now your power is making women fall apart for you,” she says lazily, tracing circles on his chest with her finger.

He lets out a laugh. “No, I’m just strong.”

“Strong?" She asks, incredulous. “Then why are you always bruised and bloody?”

His laugh is silent this time, only recognizable in the darkness for the way it skates along her forehead and over her hair.

“Fighting pays the rent, and it keeps my temper in check," he replies. "But sometimes I throw the matches, just so they don’t get suspicious.”

Strong hands reach round her waist and pull her tight to his chest. She can hear his heart beating, slow and constant as the tide. 

“It would ruin everything if they knew,” Sansa whispers, chewing at her lip. “We’d never have another moment of peace.”

His hand comes to rest against her hair, running slowly through it. He is quiet for a time, and she contents herself to listen to his heartbeat.

“Sometimes I wish I were mortal; I think it would be easier than this.” 

“I think about that too,” she whispers, nuzzling herself into the crook of his neck. He smells of evergreen and soldier pine; and it brings back memories of the Godswood at home, where her father still lives. Her mother returned to the sea long ago, having quickly grown tired of the land. 

“Why do so few gods have happy endings?” He says then, frowning. “Why are all their stories so sad?”

It is something she has spent most of her life wondering about too, why his words from before linger in her mind. Lying here in Jon’s arms though, it is hard to think of sadness, and instead she curls in closer to him and chooses to be hopeful instead. She chooses to believe that the gods doom themselves with their pride and their wrath, and in always wanting more. She chooses to believe that each person – god or mortal – makes their own fate, and with Jon she sees only happiness ahead.

“Odysseus and Penelope,” she intones, placing a finger upon his lips. He kisses it as it rests upon his lips. “Perseus and Andromeda.” She places one more, and this one too he kisses. “Cupid and Psyche.” She places a final finger upon his lips, having come to expect the kiss now – he does not disappoint her. Somehow she thinks that he never will.

“So it’s three against all of time, then,” he teases, pulling her in tight against him.

“No,” she replies with a smile. “We could make four.”

* * *


End file.
